§ Mr. Juddasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT details of the number of prosecutions brought by each of the 20 largest local authorities outside London during each of the past five years for failure by private landlords to comply with improvement orders made by medical officers of health; and whether he will also publish similar statistics covering the number of such orders made and the number of those with which landlords did and did not comply.
§ Mr. AmeryFailure to comply with an improvement notice is not an offence. The local authority have, however, power in such cases to carry out the works and to recover the expenses incurred.
I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT figures of the total number of notices of this kind served by the 20 largest authorities in each of the last three years. Corresponding information for the two earlier years cannot, however, be provided without a disproportionate use of staff time. The further information about compliance with notices is not available to me.
The following is the information:
DWELLING IMPROVEMENT NOTICES SERVED BY CERTAIN LOCAL AUTHORITIES 1967 1968 1969 Birmingham 294 605 352 Liverpool — 6 10 Manchester — — — Leeds — — — Sheffield 9 11 9 Bristol 4 1 — Coventry — — 6 Nottingham 21 55 35 Kingston-upon-Hull — — — Bradford — — — Leicester 66 153 57 Stoke-on-Trent — — — Wolverhampton — — 1 Newcastle-upon-Tyne — — — Sunderland — — — Portsmouth — — 3 Plymouth — — — Southampton — — — Walsall 148 91 47 Dudley 132 94 27